


Faces

by yuletide_archivist



Category: To the Hilt - Dick Francis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The scene is shifting in Kinloch's favour, though he still goes for prettiness over depth./"I don't know  there's nothing pretty about that hunting hound portrait down the way.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Faces

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a while since I read the book; please forgive discrepancies.
> 
> Written for twincy

 

 

It's a small but well dressed crowd. The young woman glances about and tugs the cuffs of her blazer down. It almost feels as if she should have gone bare-armed tonight; most of the other females swanning about have done so. Ah well.

As she passes a clot of men she hears: "The scene is shifting in Kinloch's favour, though he still goes for prettiness over depth." 

"I don't know - there's nothing pretty about that hunting hound portrait down the way." 

Titters of laughter, and she clenches her jaw and grits her teeth. One day those hound portraits done at the bidding of a favoured uncle will be worth millions, she just knows it. She quickens her pace to escape the rest of whatever derogatory barrage is about to spew when she hears a considering voice pipe up. 

"There's nothing wrong with marrying aesthetics to meaning. Those golf scenes of his are rather remarkable. They're earning him quite a name. Not to mention the new series."

The new series. One of a woman, both old and young, not quite a portrait - too unearthly for that, too ghostly and haunting. A portrait captures a moment in time, but this painting captures all moments, all times, realizes the full complexity of a life. It's powerful and haughty and knows its worth, much like its subject, who has traded one type of immortality for another. 

Another in the series of a grid, a barbecue grid, on a lawn. Innocuous yet menacing. A goldfish pond in the background. You only notice when you step very close that the brushstrokes of the grid and around the grid form the shape of a man, contorted, wracked with pain as he burns. She'd been angry when that painting had been unveiled. It was a reminder of rescue come too late. It was a physical artefact of torture, externalized from memory and made concrete. Everpresent, and ominous. 

The last, so far, in the series: a face that was no face, a sexless body. Done in varying shades of the same colour, expressions so similar as they layered that the borders were indistinguishable even as they morphed from male to female to something other, androgynous. Stepping forward or away from the painter produced a new expression, a grin, a wink, a snarl. Only the eyes remained the same: only the eyes, which were hers. 

"Do you like it?" The man himself is at her elbow. Mad Alexander, eyes soft as he looks at her. He wears a blazer over jeans, and she senses his mother's hand in his wardrobe. If his mother had her way, he would have been in full black tie; as it is, his outfit makes perfect compromise. "It's the first time it's ever been shown. I've already had offers to buy, but I've had to decline each one. This piece is for a certain person."

`A certain person' - she shivers. She recalls, vividly, as she stares at the face that is hers staring back, posing for Al. Clothes on and clothes off, but always naked. "What are you going to paint?" she had asked, and he'd replied, "The faces I see in you."

He leans forward and gives a kiss to her cheek. "You look very business chic," he compliments. "Excellent style as always." She blushes. "Do you like it?" Al Kinloch asks again. 

Chris Young looks at him and replies, "I do." 

 


End file.
